


(I Wish I Was) Waking Up in Vegas

by DarkJediQueen



Series: The Claimed Sentinel [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, DJQ's 2016 Fic A Week Challenge, Guide!James Bond, M/M, Sentinel!Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:26:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Returning from the dead was never easy. James knew his Guide abilities were close to the surface but the constant buzzing in his head was driving him nuts. He wanted to find out where it was coming from but London had needed saving. Then he passed out at Skyfall. When he woke, he was bonded.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers** : Through Skyfall
> 
>  **Warnings** : Canon Major Character Death, Canon Level Violence, Explicit Sex,
> 
>  **Beta** : rivermoon1970

The day that James's parents had died, everyone had walked on eggshells around him. He had not understood why until after he'd gone back to school. Then he learned that he'd been marked a Guide as a child and had been watched for years after their death. He had been classified as on the cusp of coming online from a young age, but their death didn’t cause him to come online.

He'd gone through school without coming online. Through the Navy and started at MI6 with the Guide tag still on his file. MI6 valued Guides and Sentinels, but online, unbonded Guides were like the ultimate for them. Over half of the 00s were Guides.

When James had agreed to become a 00, he'd had to sign paperwork that he'd never submit for a Sentinel search. There were eventualities of what would happen if he were to bond with a Sentinel. Spontaneously coming online during missions wasn't unheard of, but for James it wasn't an option.

M thought it was sheer will that kept him just at the edge of coming online for so long. That he didn't want to have a Sentinel, so he made sure that he never came online. James had hacked his file often, after every single mission in fact. He was never sure if M or even Q knew that he did it. He didn't care. Psych always had a field day with him. He always made sure that he passed, playing off the doctor sent to talk to him.

Waking up on the riverbed, half drowned and in the biggest pain of his life, James had cursed the hum that had been with him since the day before he'd started the mission to retrieve the hard drive. He hadn't been able to figure out what it was. He'd hoped upon waking up that it would be gone, but it wasn’t. It hadn't been gone away at all. Neither did it increase or decrease.. It stayed with him throughout his hiding away and healing up on the beach. The only time that it decreased was when he was passed out from drinking, or buried balls deep in whatever woman he'd picked to be his companion for however long they stayed. Some were days, others a week.

Sex felt good to James, it always had. He figured that out at sixteen, and hadn't looked back at all. Instead, he embraced the stereotype of a sex craved Guide, even if he wasn't a full Guide, because it stopped people from looking deeper.

Psych thought he'd forced himself to never come online, but in fact James wanted it. Because in this state, he could feel the hole in his heart, in his body, and was unable to do a thing about it. If he was online, he'd be able to do something about it.

So he fucked his way through every single woman that would have him and a few of the more adventurous men of his sandy paradise while he ignored that hole in his heart.

Until an explosion rocked his world. He hadn't thought anything of it until after he was back on British soil. He knew he should have been passed out drunk for hours longer. Once back in London, he'd gotten the exact time of the explosion. When converted to the timezone he was in, he'd woken up from his drunken stupor at the exact time of the bombing. That was something that he should have looked at more, given what happened after but he'd pushed it away, calling it coincidence.

The hunt for the person responsible started, and James was laser focused on getting approved back into the Double O program so he could go after the perpetrator. . He'd been shocked to hear that Boothroyd had been retired just hours after the explosion. Whispers from those around him inside the new headquarters that the man who had replaced Boothroyd was a very strict man.

The new Q had been nothing like what James had thought he would be. James was always able to read those he came across, as much as his dulled senses allowed, but Q was a mass of nothing. James had been tempted to ask if he was a Sentinel or a Guide, but hadn't had the chance before he felt the urge to leave, almost like he had to get away. That meant that Q was online, whatever he was, and he was a very private person. If he was a Guide, it could mean that he was already bonded to someone, and wanted no one to ever link them. Or he was a Sentinel who was intensely private. There were those that unless they were agitated would never feel like a Sentinel.

Silva had felt like a cesspool of greed and corruption . When the man had touched him, James had nearly puked, but only his training had stopped him from doing it. His death had felt like the world was cleansed.

M's death, though, had been painful. So painful. It had felt like his world was being ripped apart. He had held onto her for so long while the pain had got worse and worse. The only thing that had pushed into his grief and pain had been the sound of a helicopter. Afraid that Silva had sent another helicopter to take him out had caused him to lash out. The helicopter had landed and he felt people on it. He lashed out to try and stop them from coming after him. From taking her away from him.

Even when he felt a mind that he knew well, Tanner, he didn't stop. He pushed and pushed and pushed. Not willing to stop. Tanner stopped at the edge of the building, but there were still footsteps moving towards him. He pushed even harder, trying to make whoever it was stop.

Whoever it was should have had the weight of the world pressing on him. Every regret, every choice, every sadness, weighing on his soul. It should have killed him, but the man got closer and closer to James and then all he knew was blackness.

XxXxXxX

James always knew where he was when he woke up. Even after getting blinding drunk to dull the hurt of being an almost online Guide, he knew where he was. James had no clue where he was at the moment. He didn't move from the bed. Instead, he just laid there. The smell of the room was very telling of one thing, there was other scents, whether it was to hide them from him or someone else, he didn't know. He remembered that Tanner had been there, but it could have been a trick. It had felt like Tanner, but then his senses had been fooled before. As a not online Guide, he had little training besides what all latent Sentinels and Guides were given.

Over a half an hour went by before James moved. In that time, anyone else in the room would have declared themselves, unless they were like him, and if they were like him, he'd rather not wait to surprise them. He had heard nothing in the room, and nothing outside of it, but still he moved slowly and carefully to a sitting position that the bed didn't even make a sound. While he moved, he realized that he wasn't in his clothes from Skyfall. He was dressed in a loose fitting long sleeved linen shirt and equally as loose linen pants. He wasn't afraid of them falling off but they were the type of clothes that Guides wore when in Centers across the country. The only difference was that the shirt was a dark grey and the pants black. The Centers stocked their clothes with natural colors. James filed that away. Whoever had him, knew he was a Guide. He reached up and felt at his chin. When he'd joined the Navy he'd been afforded hair treatments in readiness of him coming online. He'd agreed to everything except his face and head. The hair on his face told him that he'd been out at minimum of a day, and a maximum of three.

There was no lethargy from drugs, and James knew what each and every single one of them felt like, so he knew that he'd been in a form of natural sleep. He looked around the room as he tested the muscles of his body and found them all in working order. There was a large twinge from his shoulder so he turned to look at it. He didn't expect to find a large plaster poultice slapped across it. He peeled it back enough to see that the wound had been cut into and restitched correctly. The deep ache was less than it had been. He relaid the plaster and looked down his shirt more. All of his wounds were taken care of. He'd had medical care, but it wasn't something that was professional. Something better than when Alec would stitch his wounds, but not up to a doctor's standards, but it was done with care.

Slipping up from the bed, James stood on steady feet. When his feet were settled, he took in the room as a whole. There was a closet that took up nearly an entire wall. The decorations were sparse and very much in his taste, which did freak him out just a little. There was a single painting of a Scottish Moor on the far wall. The windows were not barred. He knew his feet were bare so he carefully moved towards the first window, coming at an angle to where no one outside would see him. He saw no one on the grounds and knew from the low lying wall that he could see that the grounds were massive. It was a proper English estate. The house that he was in was two stories. He could see many exit points if he could made it to a ground floor door.

James was staring out the window when he realized that the hum was gone. He tried to focus on it more, trying to find it, but instead he found something else.

He was online.

James closed his eyes and reached out, like he used to, and found that instead of a slow molasses, he found that the link was sharp and quick. His mental net blew wide and James tried to pull it in before he hurt himself, or someone else, but all he found in that web was a single person. It was startling for him. He expected someone else in that web, but there wasn't. He focused on the person but tried not to hurt them. What happened next had James landing on his ass on the floor.

The person reached back. But not with their own gifts, no through the green tether between his mind and theirs. James realized that the reason he'd slept for so long was that he'd come online so violently that his brain had shut down to preserve itself, after bonding with a Sentinel. His mind had felt safe with the Sentinel so it was someone good. Someone from MI6 he was sure. Which was odd as MI6 would never employ someone who was close enough to James to match to him. Every applicant was screened which meant that they weren't that close of a match. They'd have to sever the bond as soon as possible because a match that low would never survive, especially not with James on the other end.

The sound of claws on floor had James turning around to look. There at the door was what looked like a wolf. Yet it was unlike any wolf that he'd ever seen. He stared at it, and it stared back at him. Neither of them moved. James then looked back out onto the property. There was no safe way for him down to the ground because he didn't know where the Sentinel was. He, or she, could be watching from anywhere, and James didn't have enough of a grasp on his abilities to be able to narrow it down. The wolf didn't move behind him. James wondered how long his Sentinel's Spirit Animal was going to live with being ignored before it pushed the issue of making James interact with him.

James finally stood and moved around the room, taking in the view from each of the three windows. It told him nothing more except that the only way he'd get out was if he'd make a run for it, and the Sentinel didn't know that he was thinking that. In all reality, the Sentinel was probably tracking him, and it would be futile to try and escape. There was no escaping a Sentinel.

Double O agents made careers in doing the impossible, but no newly online Guide with little control of his abilities had a chance in hell of escaping a Sentinel, especially when said Sentinel was bonded to the one who wanted to escape. Especially since James was injured, there was little chance that running wouldn't send the Sentinel into a feral drive.

The Spirit Animal moved but instead of coming to him, it moved towards one of the windows. Like a guard it moved from window to window and back to the door, settling down there. It laid on it's belly and crossed it's paws before laying its head on the said crossed paws.

It was like a switch had been flipped. He looked at the wolf and knew that it wasn't the Sentinel's Spirit Animal. James held out his hand and the wolf came to him. He dropped to his haunches and the wolf bumped its head into his hand.

"You are very pretty, but what kind of wolf are you?" James asked. The wolf just looked at him like he was insane, asking a question that it couldn't answer. James could almost feel emotions coming off of the wolf and knew that he was male. When James lifted his hand, the emotions went away. He reached back down and petted the wolf from head to tail. He tried to figure out why his Spirit Animal was so different than other Guides. Even the other 00's that were online didn't have hunters for Spirit Animals. He wasn't sure what that meant. Especially a wolf that James didn't know.

England had no native wolves anymore, hunting had killed them off long before, and he wondered if that was what his wolf was. An English Wolf. It would fit. His love of England was second to none, and he could see himself having an extinct Spirit Animal. He knew that it was possible. There was a man in California who had a dinosaur as a Spirit Animal, it was thankfully a very small one, and not one that was bigger than a house.

"You will fit in just fine with me, all pretty coat and I can already tell a cocky attitude. Have you met the Sentinel downstairs?"

The wolf just cocked an eyebrow.

"I need to name you." James stared into the wolf's eyes for a very long time. Trying to figure out a name for him, and it wasn't until the wolf looked away that it came to him. "Adair."

Adair licked up the side of his face, leaving no actual moisture behind, but there was a feeling of being wet. Still James wiped it off his face.

A growl unleashed from Adair's mouth and James turned to the door. He wasn't sure what was upsetting the wolf but he braced himself for what was coming through that door.

James watched the handle of the door thinking that he would have rather woke up in Vegas drunk off his ass, and no understanding of how he got that way, than hidden in the English countryside with an unknown Sentinel bonded to him. The handle never moved, and the growl of Adair got louder and louder. James stayed where he was as far from the door as he could get and waited. Adair still growled, and James reached out to pet his head. It wasn't long before James finally looked at Adair.

The wolf wasn't focused on the door handle like James was. No, he was focused on the area below the door. The small patch of space between the bottom of the door and the floor. From his height, James could see nothing. So he crouched down again to look from Adair's height, but still nothing.

A minute later, something was moving under the door. James reached for a gun that wasn't there. He couldn't tell what was moving under the door, but when something small and blue popped from under the door, James nearly laughed. It was a blue poison dart frog. Those creatures were nowhere near indigenous to the area so it was a pet. Adair stopped growling and chuffed at the frog. The frog croaked at him and Adair settled down.

The frog was the Spirit Animal of the Sentinel. Not a bloody pet.

James stayed crouched as the frog crawled ever closer to him. James waited for the frog to touch him first and when it did, he was shocked at the restraint that he felt. The Sentinel was staying away to give James the chance to adapt on his own. Whoever the Sentinel was, they had been online for a long while. James marveled at how well the person was at staying away. The frog crawled all the way up onto the arch of his foot. It settled there and just stared up at him.

It was over ten minutes before the frog jumped off his foot and hopped all the way to the closet. It climbed the door and settled on the handle. James walked over towards the door and lifted the frog up to settle it on his shoulder as he opened the door. He shouldn't have been shocked that it was his clothes inside. Various outfits that he wore when he was dressing down. It was his jeans and his polos, and his softer dress shirts. There were several more pairs of the linen clothes inside hanging on the opposite end. All of them fit for him.

The bed in the room wasn't big enough for two to share comfortably so this was his room. There was another somewhere else that the Sentinel stayed in. He didn't even try and act shocked at finding the clothes in there. The care of the wounds told him that no matter the link between them, and the weakness of it, James was sure that the Sentinel cared. A chirp like sound had James looking to his shoulder for the frog but it wasn't there. Instead it was on the hangers in front of him. It crawled carefully over them until James saw it was walking away from the linen clothes towards the back of the closet. It disappeared from sight as it dropped down. James parted the clothes, and found that he was looking down into boxes. The boxes were sturdy plastic and lidless. What shocked him though was the contents. Each box held a type of gun holster. The biggest was shoulder holsters and it had several different kinds of them inside of it. From single gun to double to gun and knife, to even one that looked like it had places for grenades. Next was back, hip, and even ankle holsters in the other three boxes.

The frog was sitting on top of the top shoulder holster in the box. James reached down to lift him out, but the frog hopped out on his own. James expected him to move towards the door but instead he climbed the interior wall with the painting of the moors.

James moved to investigate it, and it didn't take long to find the hinge. He swung the painting away from the wall and found a safe. It was a palm reader, state of the art, and something that James hadn't seen at all in the line of duty. He laid his palm down and it didn't shock him when the lock clicked and it unlatched. He opened it to find several handguns inside. There was a Walther as well as a Glock, and strangely a revolver. The Walther and the Glock had the same palm print scanner that his other Walther had, but the revolver didn't. That explained why the revolver.

The Walther was picked up first and when the lights flashed green, James knew that MI6 knew where he was, and whoever the Sentinel was it was most likely a high member of MI6. Eve was the only unbonded Sentinel that he knew of that high in MI6, and shuddered at the thought of her being the person waiting on him.

There was no way for James to work in MI6, even if the bond was broken due to incompatibility, no Sentinel would be fooled by him anymore. He'd be worthless to the Double O programme. He wondered who owned the house he was in. Was this his retirement package with a Sentinel guardian to watch over him? He lived for the rush of adrenalin that his job gave him, and he'd wither and die hiding in the countryside of England. He'd rather eat a bullet than stay where he was.

He just had to get away from it all. Arming him had been his Sentinel's mistake. He had what he needed to get out of there. The room he was in was rather warm, but a touch to the glass told him that it was cool outside, what he expected for nearing winter. He pulled the second Walther from the safe before shutting the door and putting the painting back where it was.

Guides were incapable of hurting their Sentinel's, James had been told time and time again, just like Sentinels were incapable of doing harm to their Guides, but James had seen the worst of people, and knew that it was all down to mindset. He'd put a bullet or three in the knee of the Sentinel and escape. He just had to put distance. He'd get the training he needed. There were shady places that he knew of where he could get Guide training, and then he'd end the link. He'd be free then. He probably go back to his beach at the end of the world and drink himself into death, fucking anything and everything along the way. He'd probably fuck everything he could before he ended the link. MI6 wanted him corralled and he'd not let them do that.

The frog moved to jump towards him but James stepped back. His Sentinel might care for him but he didn't care. The frog aborted the jump towards him and jumped to the bed instead. It seemed to stare at him like he could read his mind and didn't approve. The way the eyes bore into him reminded him of the new Quartermaster and he wasn't sure why. The frog jumped down from the bed and made his way towards the door, slipping underneath it in the same place that he had done it the first time. James moved over towards the door and tried the handle. He found that it turned and the door creaked just a little as it tried to open. He shut the door again and moved back to the closet. He took off the linen clothes and instead found the pair of jeans that were the warmest. Beside the boxes with the holsters were his shoes. None of his fancy ones but his running shoes, his regular boots, and his working boots. He found socks in the dresser in the corner as well as undershirts and underwear. He dressed for warmth. Two pairs of thick socks and underwear that was older and more worn just for ease of movement, as well as an undershirt. Back in the closest he found a dress shirt that he preferred above the others before slipping a double gun holster on and paired that with a flannel shirt that was near the dress shirts. It would hide the guns and give him the warmth he'd need when he escaped.

He'd debated adding in a gun at his back, but he didn't figure that the Sentinel was really that prepared for him. They'd probably expect him to be what all other bonded Guides were, meek when it came to their Sentinel. James wasn't going to put to pasture like MI6 wanted.

His plans had been to get to the continent and make his way towards Asia, but he might just visit the new digs for MI6 before he left. Getting as much information as he could about what their plans were for him, and possibly put one in the head of whoever thought that they could make him retire like they were.

When he was ready, James moved back to the door and carefully turned it so that the tumblers barely made any noise. He opened the door even slower than he wanted to really be moving, but knew that surprising the Sentinel was the only way of getting away from there. He cleared every single room on the top floor except for the one that was locked. Finding something to pick it was not on his list of things he wanted to do. If the Sentinel was in there, he wasn't getting out with James seeing him or coming down the stairs.

There were two sets of stairs that lead down to the first floor and James knew that his best bet to get away was the kitchen. Which was the stairs at the back of the house. The kitchen would have outside access, and he'd hopefully be able to slip into woods or something like it. He started down the stairs, listening as hard as he could for any noise from the Sentinel. He was tempted to reach out in the bond, but didn't want to alert the Sentinel that he was moving about.

Adair rushed past him, trotting down the small hall that led to the kitchen. James almost called for him to come back, but the damned frog was hopping right there at his side. The smell of food and coffee drew James in towards the kitchen. There he found a table laid out with a single breakfast that was sitting on some kind of contraption. He held his hand over the food and found it still warm. The coffee was still steaming and he debated drinking it. He'd not eaten in three days at the most and while he was sure that some sort of nutrition was given to him, the body did better on food.

It wasn't until he really looked at the food that he figured out that whoever was here knew him. Intimately. It was his preferred breakfast. He'd not really had it made for him by someone else since the last time that he'd stopped in to see Kincade and his wife while in the Navy. It was a full Scottish breakfast, prepared exactly the way that he wanted it.

Adair's ear perked up and James spun to the direction that his wolf was facing. There was a curtain on the window on the door and there was someone on the other side, opening the door.

James raised the Walther in his hand and aimed it where the head of the person would be when they came through the door. Adair wasn't growling, but James didn't care. There was no way to slip out before the door was opened and a mess of dark hair appeared before slipping all the way in. When the person turned, James was surprised enough that he almost dropped his weapon..

Q looked at the gun in James's hand and smiled. "Oh, good. You found the guns." Q stepped all the way inside, and shut the door before moving towards the sink and washing his hands. If he was nervous of the gun pointed at him he didn't show it. In fact, he was very much ignoring the gun, and the Double O Agent pointing it at him while he cleaned what looked like blood and mud from his hands. Blood. There wasn't a lot, but the only thing that made sense was the butchering of an animal. That didn't fit with Q though. He looked too normal, too city for something so country.

"Q?" James asked, but Q just dried off his hands and moved to the fridge in the corner. He opened it and pulled out a glass of some kind of juice before setting it on the table beside the breakfast food and coffee.

"You need to drink that as well as eat." Q finally looked him in the eyes, frowning slightly at something. "You can't eat and point a gun at me. If you want to know exactly what has happened, then you need to eat because you'll pass out otherwise. Come here, Romulus, you nosy little bastard."

The frog jumped from the counter where he had been to the counter by the fridge where Q was now leaning. The little frog jumped up to Q's shoulder next and settled there before disappearing.

"How is your shoulder?" Q asked and it looked like he wanted to come over and check him out himself but he stayed back.

"Fine."

"There were a few more fragments in there that you didn't get. I could feel the pain of them after you tried to kill Tanner and I. Passed out you couldn't block a single thing from us and all your pain was crippling. Emotional and physical. There wasn't much I could do for the emotional so I focused on physical."

"You stitched me up?" James lowered the gun as he looked at him.

"I took several lower level medical classes when I was in college."

"Why?"

"I think that it's better if I start at the beginning, 007, don't you?" Q pushed himself off the counter and moved over towards where James saw an electric kettle setting. He poured himself some into a cup and added a tea bag to it. He figured that Q would be one for loose leaf tea not the bagged, especially in his own place. Because James was one hundred percent sure that this man was his Sentinel. It changed his plans greatly on what he was going to do. Q had proven that he could be dangerous, and James wasn't exactly sure that he could truly run from him. When Q set his cup on the island where the food was waiting, exactly opposite James, he dunked the bag a few times and James realized it wasn't a commercial tea bag but some kind of fill your own. "You need to eat."

"You fixed this?"

"Kincade showed up before we got you on a helicopter out of there. He brought the missus and she told me what you liked as you'd be out of sorts when you woke up. Something about not having it in a while probably. It wasn't hard to search the Internet for a few recipes. I don't sleep much and I've been pacing like a cat since you went under."

"That room up there is a lot more put together than just three?" James paused and waited for Q to nod. "Three days."

"That's another part that it's best to tell from the beginning." Q reached out and touched the plate, shoving it just a little closer to him. James picked up the fork and started to eat. He took a drink of the coffee and found that it was perfect. Even someone who it seemed preferred tea, he could make a good cup of coffee.

"Go ahead."

"I came online during a car crash. It was a six car pile up that was caused by a drunk driver. I was in the back seat working on homework. I was in my final year before college."

"How old were you?"

"Fourteen. I'd already been accepted to the college of my choice and it was just a matter of graduating. My mother died when I was three giving birth. My little sister did not make it either. So the drunk driver slammed into the side of our car, driver's side. My father was killed instantly, and the drunk driver was able to walk away. Our cars careened into an intersection and two other cars couldn't get out of the way. When the drunk driver made it out of his car, he started to walk to get more alcohol, and caused two other cars to crash. I was getting out of the car. I was already online, the death of my father causing it. I heard the drunken mutterings of the man and knew that he was going to get more alcohol. It sent me into a feral drive. I ran at him full speed and took him down. Medics got to the scene first and had to sedate me with a dart gun. The total death count that day was seven dead. Of the cars, only the drunk man and I were the survivors. Five drivers and two passengers dead, because a man decided that driving to get more alcohol was more important than lives."

"And how did that set you on the course MI6."

"The aftermath. My family didn't have a lot of money but we had enough. This house was sitting in the country. My father had thought about setting it up as a retreat for long weekends, but his job and mom's never allowed that before me, and after me, well it was too much work. When all of that came to me, I saw it as my retreat from a world that presses on my senses. I had it redone to Sentinel standards and had a room set up that my Guide could retreat into when I found them."

"Was a search done?"

"Yes. And my results were called hard and that it would take more time. So I waited, and then I got my results. I looked at them for weeks. Graduation came and went. I started college, emancipated with a college professor set up as my sort of guardian. The one who had to check on me. I was a month into classes when I figured out what didn't feel right. The results didn't feel right. I had good matches, but the few that I had met didn't feel right. So I bided my time. I gave it until I turned eighteen and I had the results run again. Those who come online before eighteen can have that done as not all the Sentinels and Guides of the age group come on before then. So I had it run again and this time I was given the exact same matches. That was statistically impossible. That no one in the world had come online that was a better match for me."

"What was the closest match?"

"Eighty nine percent and I disliked her so much that I wanted to glue her mouth shut. Below her was a man who felt wrong to me. He was killed two years later when it was found that he liked to torture innocent things. A Sentinel found his kill collection, and went feral and killed him. I spent another year researching why a Guide would be left off a list and buried in the middle of a report from the sixties was something from MI6. All Guides who are tapped to become Secret Agents are left off Guide searches, but instead of just not having them on the list at all, oh no. They are part of the search, and their Sentinels are watched to make sure to never cross paths. And vice versa for certain Sentinels. So I figured out how to hack into MI6 and find my record. There I was and my Guide’s file was there as well, but I wasn't able to figure out who, as that is only on a paper file in M's office. Olivia Mansfield tried to get that turned around. To bring the treatment of Sentinels and Guides by British Secret Service out of the dark ages, but she wasn't able to. However, Mallory is currently getting things changed very quickly."

"What do you mean?" James tried to figure out exactly why Mallory would want things changed. He settled in though, and worried more about eating than anything else.

"If I still had that mark on my file, I never would have become Quartermaster and while Mallory may not like you very well at the current, he doesn't want to loose you or I."

"Why would he lose you?"

"Because when I left after grabbing all your things from storage, I tendered my resignation." Q looked at him like he was an idiot but James just wasn't following. Q sighed. "I am not going to work in a place that would have you pushed out because we bonded. While yes, I wasn't going to ever force it on you after I had found you, I did it because you were dying. The emotional backlash after M's death was horrible, and you were dying from it. You were searching for me, and I could feel it in London. It was a creeping feeling, and I boarded a helicopter, and when we landed, you were desperate. It was bond or die. And if you had died, I'd probably have gone into a feral rage."

"How long have you worked for MI6?"

"Two months. After I got all my degrees, it took a little time to figure out the best way to get into MI6. I made a great deal of money in the private sector and continue to do so. After my hacks of MI6 I realize how vulnerable it all was. I went back to school and added a few degrees to my name because I had a new job in mind."

"Quartermaster."

"Yes. As my job application, I hacked M's home computer and made my resume her desktop background. I also added my number to her phone. Remotely."

"I'm sure that she shit kittens."

"Yes. I'm sure that she did. I expected a Double O agent to invade my house, but instead, she had a car pick me up from my flat, and we went out to tea. By the time that we had drank a pot of very good Oolong, I had a job. I was to replace Boothroyd in two years. I was to spend the first year getting our systems up to where no one would be able to do what Silva did. I found the code that allowed him to do it. It was embedded on his file. It had been there since he'd been an agent. I would have found it, but my job first focused on the ways in and not the ways out. As soon as his computer was hooked up to the system, it hunted for the end of the file. It was supposed to do more damage, but I'd changed those parts of the system so it's codes to change things didn't work."

"Mallory isn't going to let you leave."

"Mallory has no way of making me stay. I'm not just a regular citizen, 007. I have enough money that if I disappear, people will look for me. I also have fail safes. Other hackers that will look for me and find me, if they don't see my tracks on the web. I'll be found and the UN will have me and you pulled and possibly every single Sentinel and Guide from England. They don't want that backlash. And I made sure that Mallory understood that before I left headquarters."

James sat back, tossing the cloth napkin that had been under his silverware down on the island counter. That was nowhere near the story he had been expecting. He was more than a little turned on from the feralness that Q had been talking with at the end. He was sure that Q could smell it, or hear it in the beat of his heart.

"And if you don't want the bond, once you are settled, I'll have it severed."

"How would that work?"

"How does a bond severing work?"

"No. I know how that works. I would go back to being a Double O and you would stay as Q?"

"No. I would finish the upgrades to the system, giving over all of your missions to someone else and when it was done, I'd leave."

"You'd just leave?"

"I wouldn't force you to be around me. There is only a single caveat to that. We are only softly bonded. Once we do that hard bond, we won't be able to sever it. My entire uncensored dossier is in the living room. I need to call Mallory and give him an update now that you are awake. Maybe then Eve will stop calling your phone."

"Worried is she?"

"All anyone, but Mallory and Tanner know is that you came online."

"What is Mallory telling them about your absence?"

"That I'm protecting you. Eve is of the idea that only a Sentinel like her can protect you. Then Eve wasn't aware of my status. She gets the same read as you did there in the gallery. That I am something. Mallory feels the same way. Then his Sentinel is a badass. Works directly for the Queen."

James didn't let the shock show on his face. He had a lot to think about.

"I'll be on the grounds. Send your wolf for me or call out my name and I'll come."

"Adair. His name is Adair."

"He's paced the exterior of your room since we got here. Your mobile is by my files." Q stood up and moved towards the back door again but James reaching out and laying a hand on his arm stopped him. Q allowed himself to be pulled back towards James as he stood up. He cupped the side of his Sentinel's face and leaned in to kiss him. It was probably assholish of him to tempt his Sentinel like this, but he had to know. He drew the younger man in and kissed him, hard. Q only stuttered for a few seconds before he kissed him back. James expected control of the kiss to be taken over by the Sentinel, but he didn't. He let James control the kiss from first touch of lips right up until he moved to pull back, then he dove back in. Q took his mouth in a kiss that was so claiming that James was afraid of his ability to tell him no. He didn't feel anything over bond, like Q was keeping a tight lid on it. James relaxed down and took the kiss, giving back as much as he could. He tried to calm Q down, but the Sentinel wasn't having it. In a show of his deceptive strength, Q picked him up and spun them to set him down on the counter behind.

It wasn't making it easy on his erection, the jeans were tight across his spread legs. Q though shocked him by pulling back and staring at him. "You always have liked playing with fire. This time it burned back. Make your decision and don't send for me until you do." Q was gone before James could answer him.

James shoved himself down and moved towards what he assumed was the right room. He found his mobile beside a stack of files. He had a lot of reading to do. The first thing that he noted was Q's real name, along with a post it note stuck to it telling James that if he ever called him that, he'd find out what a sexless love life was. So James filed the name away to listen for, but never use. He was okay with calling him Q.

As he read through the files, James had realized that he made a decision before he'd even kissed him. As a Sentinel, Q was everything that he wanted. He was strong, mentally. He didn't seem to be horrible in any other aspect of his life. He seemed okay with James staying as a 00. He was sure that at some point, they'd have fights about missions but Q knew he was needed and he knew that Q was needed. And if Mallory fought them on it, he'd be content, he figured to live here with Q and possibly in the city. Q would find work, and he was sure that the flying thing was that a plane would send him into a zone out without a Guide. James trusted his gut and his gut said that this was right. Q wouldn't let him stagnate and die.

So James planned as he closed the files and slipped up the stairs to find out what was in the locked room.

XxXxXxX

Q found the silence of his land the best thing about it. He didn't count the creatures that lived on it because his mind didn't focus on them. The sounds were filtered out, unless they stopped. He moved to the edge of the property, close enough to hear 007 if he wanted him, but far enough away that his senses didn't try and stay focused on him.

Grabbing the low lying branch of one of the older trees, he swung himself up into it. The higher ups in the British Government had been pushing him to find his Guide, them thinking that he'd be more settled over the short time he worked there. Q had looked for his Guide, but hadn't been that shocked when he hadn't found him at headquarters. There were seventeen agents out on long term and undercover missions when he'd been fully brought in. By the time that the attack happened and he was made Quartermaster, there were still ten out, so he'd not really wondered about the agent who was back from the dead seemingly for not the first time. As soon as he'd entered the National Gallery, he'd known that his Guide was there. When he'd entered the room with The Fighting Temeraire, he'd nearly dropped to the floor. Looking at the infamous James Bond and feeling that pull.

Q had kept himself in check, holding on tight to what wanted him to grab the Guide and take him away and protect him. It hadn't been hard to let him go, 007 was the best agent that MI6 had, and even if he was hard to control, he got the job that was needed, done. M had told him after 007 was on his way that she seriously considered finding his Sentinel, and dragging them in to help her control him. Then she would fight the battle that was getting him still labeled active duty from the front lines, instead of the cold war she had going on with the upper reaches of the government. Of course, Q was fairly certain that M hadn't known that 007's Sentinel was right there.

The fallout from M's death at Skyfall wasn't fully known to Q yet. He'd felt his empathic backlash all the way in London, and it was the only reason that he got on the damned helicopter. The flying contraptions were the one machine that Q was unable to fight a zone out on. He'd only stayed out of it from London to Skyfall because of sheer determination, and his inner Sentinel knowing that if he went into one, his Guide would die.

Theoretically, every single Guide and Sentinel on the island probably felt that event, whether they understood it, was another thing. Mallory was handling that, and trying to get years of standing thrown out of the books. Q was totally serious in that he'd leave. The other Guides and Sentinels that had tested him as a teenager were shocked that his drive wasn't to protect and serve like many of the other Sentinels, but instead to wage a bloodless battle over the Internet. Over the years, those people had figured out exactly how bad that fight was going for the good guys. Q had been brought in and paid handsomely when hackers had tried to take out the database of online, latent, and dormant Sentinels and Guides the world over.

That wasn't to say that he wasn't a one man fighting show. He trained in self defense and offense. He figured that if he fought with a Double O that wasn't 007, he'd win. His ability to think fast and his genius level intellect were boons for him where many thought they would not be given he was a Sentinel, as Sentinels were prizes for their fighting, and not how to avoid fighting by using sneaky tactics.. He proved that Sentinels weren't just guided killing machines and foot soldiers. He'd been pressured into law enforcement on a regular basis until he turned his computer skills into making sure that anyone who tried was going to regret it. As far as he knew the old Captain of the London Police was still on a no fly list for America.

A high pitched whine started up and sent out seven pulses. 007 had broke into the master bedroom. That sound wasn't heard by the agent, but some of the animals in the area had to have heard it, and Q would hear it anywhere on the grounds. He was intrigued by what was going on, so he dialed his hearing up to where he normally kept it, and moved towards the house. He didn't run and he didn't even walk fast. He wanted James to be caught red handed with whatever he was planning to do.

Opening the doors and moving through the house silently was something that Q could do easily. He was up on the second floor just as 007's heart rate dropped to a steady beat. Whatever he was doing he'd settled to a seated position. Obviously, he'd found whatever he was looking for. Q found his bedroom door open, with no attempt at hiding that the agent was in there and Q smiled. At least 007 wasn't trying to be that sneaky.

007's file was a mess of contradictions. He was bloody smart that was well documented and able to hide how smart he really was. Psych had a field day with him and had spent the last few years trying to find any doctor that could deal with him. Thankfully that was no longer needed, if 007 chose to keep the bond between them. There were a lot of perks to being a bonded pair. But the biggest thing on the file was exactly how much he liked sex. He was their best agent for honeypot missions and he did them well. Q wasn't exactly convinced that it was the Guide in him that made him so good at it. He figured it was a combination of factors.

Still, to enter his bedroom and find 007 sprawled on his bed, naked, Q was actually shocked. He guessed it was 007's way of answering, in a truly 007 manner. Q didn't give him the benefit of a shocked expression though. Instead, he let his eyes travel from the tips of his toes to his slowly darkening eyes. 007 knew that he'd already seen him naked. He'd cared for his wounds and bathed him, not that 007 had shame. He'd shown up for a meeting with M just dressed in a towel once when she'd sent Tanner to fetch him while he was in the Double O Agents showers. M had taken it in stride, but had sent out a memo after that stated that all office staff were to wait until 007 was dressed before demanding a meeting with him. Q knew about it because it was part of 007's file, which as soon as Mallory had figured out what was going on had given Q access to, not knowing that Q had access from the moment that he'd figured out that 007 was his Guide. He'd built the systems that were in place, nothing could keep him out of them.

"And what do you think is going to happen right now?"

"That all depends on how good a fuck you are," 007 replied calmly.

"Tut tut, 007. Who said that I wanted a sexual bond with you." Q raised his eyebrow at the agent who just barked out a bit of laugh. Q knew that this was a game right now to see how Q would react so the best way to get under 007's skin was to react in a way he probably wasn't expecting. Q spun on his heel and moved out of the room. If it wasn't for his hearing, he never would have heard the agent from from the bed or the soft padding of his feet as he near chased after his Sentinel.

Q allowed himself to be pinned to the wall, face first, 007 crowded at his back. 007 didn't say a thing though, instead his hand moved down from shoulder to hip and then around to cup Q through his clothing. He was half hard and when 007 touched him through his clothing his cock gave a jump and started to fill in the rest of the way. He didn't moan, not wanting to give 007 the pleasure.

"This does and so does that kiss back in the kitchen."

"Too right, but now we are on equal footing," Q said before he spun in 007's arms and pushed him back into the opposite wall. As his lips crashed on his Guide's own, Q allowed a moan to escape his throat. He settled his hands on 007's hips and picked him up. 007's arms wrapped around his neck and Q started the short walk back into the bedroom. He dropped 007 on the bed with no warning, the spark of laughter in blue eyes had Q smiling down at him.

Q took a few steps back as he started to undress. He'd dressed for warmth as it was chilly outside. His eyes never left 007's face as he stripped and he wasn't disappointed at the widening of his eyes when Q pulled his own gun out of holster and set it down on the dresser beside 007's two. He preferred back holsters for wearing around every day. 007's eyes roved up and down Q's body as it was revealed for him.

The smell of their combined arousal was the only thing that Q could smell. The sound of their breathing was the only thing that he could hear. 007 was all that he could see. 007 sat up on the bed and when Q was naked, he pulled the unrelenting Sentinel into his lap. Q straddled him with ease and leaned into kiss him. The urge to mark and to claim was growing higher and higher and taking more and more of Q's brain to keep at bay.

007 pulled back from the kiss and laid back on the bed. "Stop fighting. I can feel your urge. You can't hide it from me. So come, Sentinel, imprint on me."

"Scoot up," Q said as he raised up just enough so that 007 could do just that. When 007 was laying with his head on the pillows, Q started at his feet. He was already mostly imprinted on the smell of him, he'd done that while cleaning up his Guide after Skyfall. The sound of his heartbeat was something he'd learned while in the National Gallery as well as in their small interlude in the new Q branch. The sight of him, he was sure he'd know him from anywhere. So all that was left was touch and taste. He licked from the bottom of his toes to the bend of his ankle on both feet before he started to move up him. Turning his head at his knees, he nipped at the sensitive flesh of the side of 007's knee. As he did, 007 brought his legs up so he could splay them out, giving him access to more skin but at the same time making 007's hard cock more noticeable.

Q bypassed his crotch and went right for his hips then up to his stomach. There were minor cuts and scrapes that were mostly healed all over his torso and Q stopped at every single one and kissed it. 007's hands were laid on the bed, but he could tell that he was getting impatient for some kind of contact more than just a nuzzling of nose and the few kisses, but he kept quiet. His own hard cock was aching, but he could push that off for now. He straddled 007's waist and braced his upper body on his arms.

"Turn over, 007."

"James," 007 gasped as he did as he was asked. Through the bond they had Q could feel it as his cock rubbed on the bed as he settled down. Q smiled wickedly as he lowered himself to plaster his body along James'. His own cock settled in between the Guide's arsecheeks. James's entire body went taut and Q started to thrust his cock a little as he mapped the scents of his Guide right at the nape of his neck, along with the taste, and how the skin felt on his tongue. He moved down the bed, slowly. When he got down to James's arse, he only bit once on each cheek before going down to the backs of his thighs. He had plans, but he had to finish this first.

When he reached feet, Q looked up and took in the whole of his quivering Guide. His hands were gripped tight on the pillow that his head was resting on. His breath was coming in sharp pants. Q smiled as he reached up and laid his hands on James's arse cheeks, the sharp intake of breath followed by the snapping open of James's eyes told Q that he was on alert. The smile turned to a smirk as he spread his cheeks and licked a stripe all along his crack. James moved and while Q was prepared for it, he wasn't prepared for how fast his Guide moved to get his legs under him to present his arse even more for his Sentinel.

From the new angle, Q could access the entirety of him, taking in his scent and taste from the core of him. As James took in all the sensations, Q could feel his empathic shields dropping for him more and more. This was what he wanted, James was letting go and letting him in all the way. Q reached out and felt under the edge of the mattress of the bed to grab the lube he'd stored there. Knowing that when it came time, he wouldn't even want to waste the seconds that it would take to reach up into the nightstand by the bed, the normal location for the lube. Q slicked up his fingers as he pushed his tongue into James. As he pushed in as far as he could, he could feel James give himself to his Sentinel utterly. Q started to let go of the parts of himself that he kept hidden, letting James in, as much as James was letting him in. Letting him feel everything that he could feel.

When Q pulled away, James keened and he quickly pushed in the first finger, slipping it in and out a few times before he pulled away and then added a second finger. James was having trouble concentrating so Q forwent the third finger.

Q prodded James onto his back as he slicked up his cock. Once his Guide was settled Q inched forward. James's eyes were blown wide. The bond between them was right on the precipice of becoming more. Of becoming something that only death broke.

"Are you ready?" Q knew that he was asking about more than if James was ready to be fucked. He was asking if he was ready for it all because they could still back out. James reached up and cupped the back of Q's neck. He gripped tight and nodded.

The remaining walls around James mind, the last bit of self that he was holding dropped away. Q felt all that he was. The grief about M that was barely contained, Q allowed it in himself and gave back comfort. Q held himself back because letting go was going to mean that he'd take James's recesses and leave nothing hidden. First, though he needed to be inside of James. He wanted to feel what the agent felt like wrapped around his cock. What it was like to be fucking 007.

Taking himself in hand, Q leaned up and over James, slipping himself in his agent. He went from nothing to full hilt with ease. When he was fully pressed inside him, the last barriers fell. They were laid bare before each other.

Q had wanted to remember every single second of the first time they had sex, but as he stared into James's eyes as he fucked him, all he could remember was the emotions. The swell of lust as James gave into it. As he trusted that he didn't have to be on guard all the time now. That Q would protect him. The swell of possessiveness from his Guide shocked Q. They were two strangers. It was near impossible that James would trust him after what little time they had known each other, but here he felt it.

The was no time seemingly from the instance where he was first inside James and when he felt himself let go. He came with a silent cry and it was only the clenching of James's body that told him the Guide tipped over as well. Q was barely able to hold himself off James long enough to pull out. He collapsed on his side and James wrapped his arms around him, pulling him in tight. Q settled there and James bussed a kissed on his head.

"Why did you choose me?" Q asked.

"Because with choosing me, you stand to lose as much as I do. You are willing to leave Quartermaster behind and go away. You chose me with all my flaws, with my issues. I know that you have read my file and that you know all of them. You wouldn't be a good Sentinel if you didn't. I wouldn't be shocked if you didn't know all the things about every single person inside of MI6."

"So you chose me because I am willing to stand with you."

"You had no reason to, from even the beginning, bond with me. No reason at all. You could have stayed in London and chose to live like you already were. I would have died and while you might have mourned, you don't know me. Not well enough for it to make enough of an impact. You who followed my insane idea, who didn't know me from Adam and helped me when you had no reason to. You chose me so I chose you."

James rolled a little bit, dropping Q face first onto the bed. It was a large bed and they were nowhere near the edge. James covered his back with his body. Q waited to see what James was going to do. "My turn."

Q remembered every second of their second time together. From the first touch of James's hands on him to the burn of the breach, to burying his head in the pillow so he didn't scream when James worked him to orgasm. James cleaned them both up before tucking them in for a nap. Q fell asleep content for the first time in a long while.

When they woke up a short while later, Q was still wrapped in James's arms as much as he was wrapped in his mind.

"You sleep like the dead after sex." James's voice was a low murmur and Q turned his hearing up just a little so that he could hear him. James's hand was on his stomach, trailing up and down the light hair there. It felt good.

"I sleep like the dead all the time. It's horrible, but I do wake up for the odd noises. I live in a house about seven blocks from MI6. A kid threw a rock through my window by the front door and I woke from a dead sleep after being awake for three days straight after hacker attacks on MI6 three weeks before Silva first attacked. It was upstarts in college, but they tried. I ended up back hacking them and leaving recommendations on their college files that they needed more to keep them busy. I also have my eye on one of them. They almost got all the way in."

"Sounds like someone that MI6 does want to keep an eye on." James nuzzled in at his neck.

"As soon as they graduate, I'm picking her up. If she doesn't want Six, I'll make Five take her in."

"Who maintains this house?"

"I have full time staff that does. There is a village three miles away and they live there. I gave them a few days off while we nest. They stocked the house up with foods and I usually only have minimal staff when I am here anyway. They are quite happy that I found my Guide."

"Are the grounds marked well?"

"Yes. Feel free to explore later. I can take you around if you wish as well."

"No. I'd prefer to walk alone."

"That's fine. I have some work to do on my home network here. Upgrades. It'll take me a while and when you get back we can do dinner."

"Do you cook?"

"Marginally. I have a few things that I can cook and I do them well." Q had never been too interested in cooking. He could cook when he put his mind to it, but he never wanted to put his mind to it.

"I can cook." James nipped at Q's ear and he wrapped his arms around him tighter. "Can you do the work in the kitchen?"

"I can. Why?"

"If we are doing this, we do need to get to know each other. You can work on your network and I can cook and we can talk. We can get to know one another before we go back to MI6 because Mallory isn't going to let us hide here."

"I'm mandated a two week leave and you have been attached to that. We can head back for M's funeral or we can not. No one would dare raise an eye at me for not being there, and I doubt you'd have been seen at it, been there yes, but not seen."

"You are very correct. You know when I was a kid I used to dream about frogs. Never knew why. My mother told me when I was a toddler, I'd bring them home from the moors around Skyfall."

"I wasn't shocked to meet Adair. I always dreamed of wolves. I saw him for years in my dreams and it took a long time for me to realize that he wasn't a breed I'd find anywhere. That he was an English Wolf."

"Destined," James said with a laugh and a kiss to the back of his neck. "Destined and I don't think that MI6 will know what hit them."

"They didn't when you joined the ranks and they started to learn it about me."

XxXxXxX

James walked through the halls of MI6. He'd already been down for his second set of requalification tests of the past month. He'd balked at them, but when Q had looked at him with narrowed eyes that clearly stated that it was take the tests or work a desk job, James did them. The tests had been exactly the same as before, but there were a few new ones, that he knew from the talk that all online Guides had.

Q had spent the entire two weeks helping him get control of his Guide abilities. He'd been just as hard a taskmaster as he had been when James's had been running the tunnels to get after Silva. James wasn't shocked that Q wanted the best out of him. It wasn't a shock to James that they fit together well. The bond between Sentinel and Guide was hard to top as far as relationships went. The bond that, when formed, romantics called the pairs soulmates.

After four days of being alone, Q called his household staff back so that they could meet James. It had been a quick meeting, and James had figured out that while Q paid them to work the house, he genuinely liked them and was going to do his best to not be an ass to them. The cook had gone back to the village while a few of the staff had stayed to do their jobs, like the head groundskeeper and the two young men who worked under him. With expansive grounds like he had, James wasn't shocked that he had several people to maintain it. That was also when he found out that Q had a bit of land that wasn't within the wall, that was all hunting grounds, full of trees and paths. So he went hunting on the first day of the second week of his time off. It had also been M's funeral as well as the first day of Mallory's official instatement as the new M.

"Bond?" Eve called out, and he turned to see her standing at the elevator that he'd just passed. There was a twinge in his now pretty much fully healed shoulder. He figured that that twinge would always be there when she surprised him. Eve wasn't happy with the fact that James was being allowed to stay in the Double O program. James, and Q, didn't care either way. She was a professional and if she couldn't do her job and keep her mouth shut, well again MI6 needed Q more than it needed her. Mallory had already called her to heel. "M wants to see you please."

"I'll be right up. I'm to drop off something from medical to Q. One of the PAs dropped a piece of tech that Q built for them."

"Very well."

Bond nodded and turned back to start going the way he had been. He did have something to drop off to Q but it was more that medical hadn't wanted to brave Q Branch. Since Q had got back, he was a slave driver, according to R, who laughed the entire time. Q's second and a bloody hilarious woman, James was half in love with her at the moment because she called Q on his shit when he was an arse or backed him up when other's were arses to Q. She was fully human and Q had handpicked her from Boothroyd's staff to be his second within ten minutes. It seems that no one in Q Branch had been happy about it. And James knew why. Q Branch was it's most efficient with those two in charge and nothing happened without them knowing it.

With a goal now needed, James turned and started towards where his Sentinel was. The tunnels weren't mapped by him mentally yet so he relied on his bond with Q to find the man. Just as he opened the doors to Q Branch, he stopped. Q was in the middle of a strop that was bloody fantastic. R had done her best while Q was away to keep things going, but with M's death and the new M coming in, she'd been busy with meetings and such. Another person had been put in temporary charge, and he'd cocked up everything except the teapot, if Q's texts weren't exaggerating. And James didn't think that he was, especially with the strop he was in at the moment. James stood there at the door just watching as Q berated two of his staff for idiocy. That was all that he was yelling at, James figured that he missed the real reason they were being yelled at. When he knew that it was going to take a bit longer for Q to fully realize that he was there, he set the device down beside R and moved to Q's office, shutting the door. He sat down in Q's chair and grabbed the tablet on his desk. There was a post it stuck to the screen that simply said _For James_. James smiled and ripped off the post it. He booted up the tablet and found that it was loaded with a few games as well as what he was quickly learning was MI6's new operating system.

James played with the tablet, feet propped on the corner of Q's desk as he made himself familiar with the tech.. He found a few games he liked, and a few he loved as well as every single form that he'd need when filing his mission reports. He frowned at those, but was smiling inside. He'd complained that he hated his shared office with the rest of the 00s, and it seemed Q made it so that he didn't have to go there to file his reports. He could do it anywhere in MI6, but would probably be right where he was in Q Branch. Q had gone in hours before him so this was the first time James had seen him since he'd got to work. He set about working on his files for work since Mallory had told him he did need them as soon as possible.

It was two and a half hours later that James finished his reports and emailed them off to Mallory. He laid his head back on the chair and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he was relaxed, he reached out to find that Q wasn't in the branch anymore. He was good at judging the distance that Q was away from him, they'd tested it on the grounds before leaving. He found that Q was a good ways away but coming closer. His mind was frazzled but nothing too bad. Probably going over all he had to do to get caught up. James tracked him as he got closer and closer. He heard more than felt when he entered Q Branch again. James cracked his eyes open and watched the door open.

Q entered with a bag of take out in one hand, and a tray of three drinks in the other. He sat up, and took the tray offered him as Q turned to shut the door. James easily figured out which was his cappuccino, and that the other two were tea. One was marked EG while the other was just C. Earl Grey and Chamomile. One for during lunch and one for in the late afternoon. James was used to his drinking habits by now. James moved to stand up, but Q tutted so James stayed where he was. Q set the food down and lifted out four different Chinese take away boxes. Two were passed to James while the other two were set down. Chopsticks were next and before James could say a thing, Q sat down in his lap.

"What's this?" James asked, but he wrapped an arm around Q's waist and held on.

"Just need a few minutes of silence from them, and when we are touching, all my senses focus on you and not on everything else." Q opened his food and then James's since he was basically keeping James from using his second hand. James hummed as he worked his hand under the cardigan that Q was wearing and then popped two of his buttons on his dress shirt to touch skin. He could feel how much more settled Q was when he touched his skin. Q's body went near lax at the touch.

"Better, Quartermaster?" James asked with a smirk on his face.

"Much, 007. Now eat. Mallory told me that you near gave him a heart attack, filing your paperwork not only on time but correctly, even if you did duck a meeting with him to do it." Q used chopsticks, which James delighted in. It was nice to share the smaller things like that with him.

"I had to try out my new toy."

"I figured when you entered my office you would find it. Any issues?"

"No porn that I could find on it."

Q snorted and giggled. Which was exactly what James was hoping for.

"You don't need porn on your work tablet."

"I also didn't find any pictures of you." James grabbed his chopsticks and started to eat.

"That can be remedied easy. I can email you some from the last two weeks."

The longer Q sat there, the calmer he became.

"So what decision was made on me?"

"Full Double O agent. Honeypot missions obviously not on the table. Time between missions is at my command. Actually, the time between all 00's missions are at my command now, human, Guide, or Sentinel. It seems that the Queen likes you, James. Something about a covert mission where you infiltrated the Palace and found an assassin?"

"Mum's the word."

"Yes well, she called Mallory as soon as it was found out you had bonded. I don't know what she said. but it seems that even she didn't know what happened to Sentinels and Guides in the Double O program. There will be a meeting across the board for all government offices."

"Mallory is a Guide."

"Yes and he was pushed from his job into an office when he bonded. Mallory wants me to be the Sentinel that goes and he'll be the Guide. I told him that was fine, but that you go as my security. Miss Moneypenny will go as his."

"When and where is this to happen?"

"Unknown at this moment, but you'll be on stand down until then. The Queen wants it to happen in the next week. MI6 has already agreed to be there whenever it happens. MI5 is trying to not go at all. There are others as well, including the PM. At this point it's a game. I guess the Queen is going to tell them that whoever shows up, makes the rules and everyone else has to live with it. There are going to be some shake ups, and it's not going to make anyone happy. Well those who want to use Sentinels as bloodhounds and Guides as lie detectors."

"You'll do fine for us." James left his hand on Q's belly, rubbing slightly. It astounded him, exactly how much his Sentinel ate and still never gained an ounce of fat. Training with Q had been hard, but James was better off for it. He was the fittest he was in years, and Q still beat him on a daily basis. He wanted to talk Q into letting him test some guns and making it a game. Seeing who was the better shot.

Q and him fit together better than he and Vesper ever had. There were no secrets between them. There was no hesitance. Love would come slowly. With meals shared and beds. With time and work. This was the most important relationship of either of their lives, and James was ready to give his all for for it.  
**The End**


End file.
